“I was told you need a deckhand.”
“You think? What's the box?”
“A parcel. I've paid postage-”
“Whatever, put it with the postage items on deck. Standard pay, see that pile of crates? Goes over there, get to work.”
I was left opening and closing my mouth for a moment, wondering when I get to present my sales pitch. Reluctantly accepting victory, I placed my box in the postal pile, then jumped to work, grabbing boxes and lugging them up the gangplank. They were heavy, and there were a lot of them, but the Manny was more than up to the task. I had to dive into the water twice to cool off, but everyone else was doing the same. As usual. In short order. I have the pallet moved.
“Next,” I said to the same deckhand, who turned out to be the foreman. With a pleased expression, he pointed to another pile of boxes.
About two hours later he began to look like we were catching up. I did a quick cooling dunk, then joined the other deckhands. The foreman slapped me on the shoulder. “Good work. I hope you can keep up that level of energy. It looks like we're going to be shorthanded.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Cops came by and arrested two of our crew for no reason I could see, took a personal effects too. It’s supposed to be just for one night, but we can't wait. We have performance clauses on this shipments, so we’re leaving by dusk if the captain has to row the boat himself.”
“Which each explains why he seemed excited,” I replied.
Foreman guy laughed. “Yeah, excited, that's what we call it. He used some threats I've never heard before. I think he was saving them for today.”
I grinned. “I'm Sam Ga-” Oops, I almost gave myself a last name again. Nope, didn't need the notoriety. My faux pas didn't register though, or maybe the translation software hadn't passed it on. The foreman, whose name was Ralph, introduced the team just as the captain started up with another tirade.
“Time to cast off people,” Ralph said, rolling his eyes in the captain's direction.
We got back to work, aided by more of the captain's helpful suggestions. I did notice that those suggestions tended to be anatomically related. This guy ran a theme, I guess. The duties on the Clipper were generally the same as on the Hurricane with a few extra tweaks, since it was a bigger boat and a full-on catamaran design. We moved a few items below decks on Ralph's orders and checked the sails once more, and we were done. Until the next time the captain’s head exploded.
I’d almost tripped on several occasions over a quartet of Quinlans who had parked their butts in the middle of the deck. A few choice words from Ralph, and they found a more out-of-the-way location. Now that I had the time to actually look at them, I realized they were probably a sabbat. It was odd that they’d be paying for passage when we were going through a connector or segment boundary, where the turbulence could get uncomfortable and tiring to fight.
“Hi all,” I said, holding up a hand. “I'm Sam, lately out of a sabbat myself. We just went our own ways, a couple of weeks ago.”
“Hello, Sam,” replied one of the group. “I'm Tina, and these are Fred, Tony, and Barb. We’re looking to Homestead. We’ll be jumping as soon as we see a good spot.”
“Starting your own town?”
“Nothing so ambitious. We want to get away from towns, altogether. Don't need them. The fishing is good, this is in one of the cold segments, and a nest is easier to make and maintain. And we won't have to worry about the juniors getting into trouble.
“So you’re going back to the wild.”
“Pretty much. Don't need the rest of it. Counting irons to see if your ahead, you know.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “I do. Kind of. You’re not the first group I’ve run into that’s doing this, either.”
She smiled in reply, and I glanced at the other three. None of them seemed inclined to chime in. It was unsettling. This was an intelligent species, devolving almost right in front of my eyes. Tina and I talked about inconsequential things for a bit until Tony suddenly declared “Food time!” and slipped over the edge of the boat. The others joined him. Tina gave me an apologetic shrug before leaving.
I settled myself on the deck to get a bit of sun, following the sailor’s tradition of resting whenever possible. A couple of the other deckhands joined me after glancing at the captain, who was ignoring us for the moment. A few minutes later, the members of the sabbat pooted onto the deck and settled down with their catch. It was a comfortable, drowsy, idyllic interlude - something I hadn’t gotten anywhere near enough of, since the Starfleet issue started. If I'd still been bio, I'd of drifted off to sleep. Some of my coworkers seem to be doing exactly that.
Tina had mentioned cold segments that was interesting.
“Tina, have you ever been in a cold segment?”
“No, but my dad lived in one for a while. It snowed sometimes, and there was ice on some of the streams. I’ve never seen snow or ice. Hard water, right? Weird. Different fish, too, and some other plants and animals that are different.” She thought for a moment. “Da used to tell stories of segments that had other oddities as well. There was supposed to be one that was mostly water, with only islands sticking up here and there. Another one was dry, and the river actually disappeared under the land. I don't know how much to believe, and how much was da trying to scare us when we were juniors.”
“I don't think your da was making it up,” Ralph
